


Have a Little Faith

by starzki



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Introspection, M/M, Vignette, almost a thousand years of love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:33:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27784537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starzki/pseuds/starzki
Summary: Nicky always seems so sure about everything. He's had a while to think of what and who he believes in.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 6
Kudos: 47





	Have a Little Faith

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to ScribeFigaro for looking this over for me.

Have a Little Faith

By Starzki

-x-

Nicky has been a man of faith for nearly a thousand years. Sometimes his faith is misplaced, but it is an ethos that has served him well.

**_Nicky has faith in people._ **

He has seen the worst of humanity: women, children, elderly, and non-combatants are as easily chewed up in war as soldiers. Easier even. Outside of war, the evil is quieter but no less ruthless to those it victimizes. He never gets used to it. But he figures, “That’s why I’m still here.” He puts himself in the way to protect the innocent and absorbs the pain meant for them.

But Nicky has also seen the best of humanity. It’s never _only_ been him standing between evil and the defenseless. Nicky has seen countless men and women with only one life to lose stand up for what was good. More often than not, people make the right decisions, extend a hand to those in need, and save themselves and the world over and over.

Nicky has faith in people because he found a way to have faith in himself. Although he was raised with hate in his heart for people he had never met, with help, introspection, education, and healthy doses of forgiveness, he found his own goodness. He is not sure if he will ever truly atone for the life he lived for over thirty years, for the blood on his hands and soul, but it is a source of pride for him that he will never stop trying. He knows if there is a light in him, it exists in all humanity. Nicky has faith in people.

**_Nicky has faith in God._ **

He believes in a higher power. He isn’t quite convinced it is the same being he was taught in seminary or is in the sacred texts of the Bible, Torah, or Quran. He suspects the God of holy books is man’s limited understanding of Force behind the universe. Nicky’s understanding of God is closer to St. Anselm’s that-than-which-a-greater-cannot-be-thought: God as more abstract, but still amazing. God is the best thing, the Being Who Knows and is All Powerful.

Nicky has faith in this God because he sees proof of It every day. He only needs to point to his own longevity to believe, but there is more. All of the immortals that It created were warriors who were able to fight, granted their gifts while they were still young enough to be strong and able to affect the changes needed in the world, and were all good enough to want to band together and try. Of course, Nicky would never be opposed to welcoming ageless potters or accountants or healers, but there is a particular sense that The Being who chose them, who chose him, saw the endless usefulness of those willing and able to put up a good fight and were willing to fight for the redemption of the world.

Nicky has faith that God exists and is good because how else but an all-powerful God can one explain that Nile joins them just as Andy loses her power and Booker is about to betray them? Without her, they would all still be in chains being tortured to death over and over by Merrick and his doctors. Nile is a beautiful proof of God’s existence to Nicky.

Nicky has faith because he sees Him everywhere, protecting them. Despite being the middle of the afternoon in London, no one saw Nile and Merrick’s defenestration and Nile’s subsequent healing. Nicky knows, he _knows_ , that God helped them make a clean getaway.

And Nicky has faith in God because God gave Nicky Joe. When the others died alone and remained alone for years, even centuries, God must have known how much Nicky needed someone to guide him and love him as he was and for who he could become. Nicky can look back and see his own weaknesses and how easily he could have been led toward darkness and despair, but didn’t because of Joe’s patient and loving influence. If not for Joe, Nicky feels in his soul that he would have ended up an agent of chaos and evil in this world. He thanks God and all the stars that he didn’t have to navigate his ignorance, terror, and confusion alone.

For all of this, especially for the gift that is Joe, Nicky has faith in God.

**_Nicky has faith in Joe._ **

Joe did not have to teach Nicky. He didn’t need to help the invader of his holy land question everything everyone had ever told him, walk him through his own understanding of God and love, or to expand and deepen his understanding of the world. Joe didn’t have to teach Nicky all of this, but he did because he is Joe.

Joe didn’t have to accept Nicky’s contrition. Joe didn’t have to hold his hand through the grief that dawned on Nicky as he realized what his part in the world had been. Joe didn’t have to believe Nicky’s change in heart, even when he was so instrumental to its evolution. The number of tears Joe has brushed from the cheeks of a repentant Nicky over the centuries could are still not enough to wash his soul clean, but at least it is a start. Joe didn’t have to forgive Nicky, but he did because he is Joe.

And Joe didn’t have to love Nicky. Joe didn’t have to fill Nicky’s head and heart so full of poetry and love that Nicky truly felt he knew what it was to fly. Joe didn’t need to make Nicky feel clever and beautiful. He didn’t have to praise Nicky’s kindness and softness when all anyone else had ever wanted from Nicky was his bile and sword’s edge. Joe didn’t have to hold Nicky through the night and greet him with a true smile in the morning. Didn’t have to bless Nicky with the pleasure of his kisses, his hands, his words, his breath, or his cock. Nicky might never have known what it was to yell himself hoarse with pleasure so much that he spent the next day in whispers. When he didn’t have to, Joe still showered Nicky with so much love that Nicky began to recognize it in himself, in others, and even in God. He didn’t have to, but he loves Nicky because he is Joe.

Nicky does what he can to show his love for Joe as well. The thirteenth century was hard for Joe. He had trouble accepting death in those he grew to love. He hated watching people grow old around him, get sick, and pass on. Nicky made it his responsibility to become Joe’s anchor, his lodestar, his home. After decades of depression, Joe’s smile found its way back to Nicky. When Nicky knew that he had been the one to help Joe, it was the proudest moment in his life.

(Nicky and Joe see the same despair in Booker. They tried to be his home, too, but the ties that bound them together were too different, too weak to keep him from wandering astray. Nicky knows he’s more forgiving because he saw so much the same in Joe and Joe is angry because his love wasn’t enough. Nicky hopes that Booker finds faith in _something_ soon or else he will drown, keep drowning, like Quynh.)

Nicky knows that Joe was meant for him. He knows it in his bones. He knew it even when he killed Joe, over and over. There was something even beyond immortality connecting their souls. And he loves Joe so deeply and completely that the feelings have pushed away his fears and his doubts.

Nicky hadn’t known he was capable of such love. He certainly knows he didn’t deserve it. Doesn’t deserve it. How could he when Joe is everything Nicky wants and wants to be?

Nicky knows Joe worries about being alone, that Nicky might die and leave this world before he does, but Nicky has faith. They lived at the same time. They died at the same time. And then they lived and died together for as much of forever as any man has ever seen. Nicky knows there is no world without Joe and when his time comes, Joe will be by his side for whatever happens next.

Nicky has faith because he wonders if he really did die that first time in Jerusalem. For the over nine hundred years since that day, he could not tell you any ways in which his life would be different from heaven. There is so much love and goodness around him that even if his life ends soon and he moves on to an existence where he will pay for his sins, nearly a thousand years of heaven was enough.

But until the day he breathes his last, Nicky will keep the faith.

END.


End file.
